High Cheekbones
by Mandy2
Summary: In the wake of her obsessive and abusive crush on Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini realizes that improving her relationship with Oliver Wood will heal her.
1. Creep

Disclaimer: Neither own Creep (Radiohead) nor Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling, Twentieth Century Fox, Time Warner, and respective publishing companies). However, my intricate little ditty does belong to me.

> > _When you were here before  
Couldn't look you in the eye  
You're just like an angel  
Your skin makes me cry  
You float like a feather  
In a beautiful world  
I wish I was special  
You're so fucking special  
But I'm a creep  
I'm a weirdo  
What the hell am I doing here?  
I don't belong here  
I don't care if it hurts  
I want to have control  
I want a perfect body  
I want a perfect soul  
I want you to notice when I'm not around  
You're so fucking special  
I wish I was special_

_Blaise's Lament_

**_One_**

It was more like playing dress up to her—which pained her to think about. She watched him in the shadows, often like he watched her—the shadows they lurked in so strikingly different it cut her even more. Draco favored the dark, erotic and private shadows of his library, of his bedroom…and Blaise had to be content to disguising his intrigue in the bright ballrooms of large houses, looking mournful in an expensive dress and on the arm of some well-dressed crony who she'd end up smoking with and kissing on some lonely balcony.

To watch him practically engaged to Pansy Parkinson and practically in obsessive love with Ginny Weasley—Blaise hated it. She was the halfway point. She was the distinctive and exclusive pure that Pansy was with the deep auburn curls, so much darker than the flaming color of the Weasleys, but that's what the distinction was. It paled her vivaciously brown skin. No freckles quite, but she was still just good enough for Draco.

"You're my best friend," He would whisper as an excuse, biting her lip and pulling away from her. He'd go and sleep in the bathtub, leaving Blaise in a bed of silk and confusing thoughts and she always felt as faint as a whisper.

Her crush on Draco had never quite tapered off into the distance, as she hoped it would, but it had faded. They were friends, although she was never quite sure of the boundaries of that relationship, as her crush never let her see clearly.

She had cared for him quite passionately since sometime in second year. But even then she had known her station. It had cruelly been whipped into her skin by everything around her. The aristocracy of the Slytherin house drained her, until she looked like some emaciated fairy from a very morbid ballet or lullaby—enchanting, delicate and internally bleeding.

* * *

In her third year, she had gotten lost from the crowd of third year Slytherins in Hogsmeade and ended up by the train station, where the Slytherin Quidditch team stood around, smoked cigarettes and pipes, and had a library of different flasks, filled with whatever touched your fancy intimately. A smile had spread about Blaise's face, and she had gotten stoned for the first time, giggling like mad and kissing anyone who would sit still long enough. More often than not, she'd play the poor little rich girl who couldn't be having money disappearing and she'd let herself get dragged into some shack with Marcus Flint, five years her senior and held back one year, and he'd gleefully grope and control her for a single pack of cigarettes…he bought her favorite, a distinctly mint-flavored pack in a glamorous platinum blonde package that read in quite girly script for Marcus's taste, 'Duet', the only thing legible in English. Blaise would draw in a drag of smoke, exhale, and pull Marcus into a deep kiss once they had finished the business end, and all the boys would laugh tenderly, keeping their secrets as to keep their fun. Their own little Lolita stood before them, a thirteen year old girl trying to play dress-up and smoke like a glamorous socialite they would lust after when they grew older.

Her hands would slip down into Miles Bletchey's pants because he was the only one who brought a flask of red currant rum, her favorite in her school years, and oh how the boys would laugh with her, affectionately taking care of her in the hallways for some unknown reason, and no one had ever connected Blaise's disappearances on Hogsmeade weekends with anything other than the pristine appearance she gave off. Perhaps, many optimistically thought, they had all adopted her as a little sister of some sorts…she was sort of boyish in her laid-back personality, after all.

In her third year, Blaise had thought her crush on Malfoy had begun to fade, mainly on account of they weren't really good friends for quite a few years, and besides, the Slytherin Quidditch team, although he was very much a part of them, could easily move on their own, and combined, possessed the wealth and prestige Malfoy had and had their own physical strength. Blaise had her fun with them quite often until Malfoy started showing up later in the semester.

Miles had told her in confidence over quite a bit of red currant rum that Flint had been joking with the senior Slytherin Quidditch players in the locker room about how much fun Blaise had been, desperate for a smoke and alluringly aloof all at the same time, and that Malfoy had punched him. Of course, Flint had survived it and had shaken Malfoy into his senses. Somewhere in there a business deal had been made and Malfoy suddenly started accompanying Flint to the train station and buying Blaise's cigarettes for her, and none-too-ironically had started purchasing a brand called 'Solos' for her, as to nip that reminder in the bud, and that had been the end of that until Flint had gone and graduated.

Eventually, the 'original' line-up had all gone and graduated, with the exception of Adrian Pucey and Malfoy. Remnants of her sordid past had withdrawn even further into the more select darkness. While Draco partied among his prized whore after the first and pathetic Slytherin win over Gryffindor, Blaise had Marcus in Draco's bed, getting the blowjob of the year. When Draco had been off running around with his prized whore following Umbridge's and his father's orders blindly like a sadomasochist lamb to the slaughter, Blaise had been reuniting in Hogsmeade with Miles at the old train station.

By her sixth year, it had become a pointed decision that she'd have to take on an official lover, to appease appearances, to quench the thirst of gossips, to dispel rumors and to make Draco intensely unhappy. Her qualifications were not too high—money wasn't an issue as Draco insisted on having financial control of the girl becoming known as his best friend and sole confidante, but looks were, as were pureblood and a Hogwarts status, as to easily flaunt her affair; dangling it in front of Draco like a carrot leading a donkey. It was terrible that Davies had left—a quite attractive and intelligent bloke, with loins always boiling over with lust.

Robert Ashley Bradley had finally been selected in October of her sixth year, and by November; she had seduced him into her snake pit. He was a seventh year Ravenclaw Chaser and Head Boy. Due to Draco's insecurities about Blaise's behavior, reincarnated after he had found Blaise tangled up with Adrian Pucey after Slytherin's devastating loss at the House Cup fifth year when Draco had been needing some attention; he had pulled strings and made sure Blaise had become prefect that year. Unfortunately, that only allowed Robbie and Blaise a lot more alone time, and although Draco publicly approved of the match, inwardly he was boiling and he didn't like the feeling of getting hot with absolutely no release. In sixth year, after Slytherin had lost to Ravenclaw in the match prior to the final and Draco was fuming and Blaise was shacked up in the Head Boy's room for the entire weekend, that incident had became the end of the affair. Robert pursued Blaise again and again after that, and when Ravenclaw lost to Gryffindor in the last round, Blaise had comforted him, but told him with quite a bit of pain, as she had come to like him and very much enjoyed the time they spent in his room, that it couldn't continue onward. Of course, Draco wasn't pleased that she had spent another second with him, but when it came down to it, he had no control over that. He had joked that it was silly for her to date out of house, it was nearly impossible to do so, he insisted. And the following year, she pushed her boundaries even more.

* * *

She had initially set eyes on Oliver Wood as every other forlorn, love-ridden girl had in her first year, and had watched him separately as a Quidditch fan, pushing her lust aside in his final year when she had begun smoking with the Slytherin Quidditch team. During the summer, she had taken several day trip excursions on her own to follow his team as they had already made it as Great Britain's national team, and by the time they had arrived in her native Italy, he was seeing her for private dinners in his hotel room after matches. They would lounge around languorously; she'd offer him her luxury expertise and order for them, massage him and loosen his muscles, and he'd kiss her quite gingerly and tenderly. By the time he was a victor at the World Cup, she was publicly his.

Oliver had much to learn from Blaise and she had much to learn from him. He had become quite the magical equivalent of good old Becks with her. In scorn and anguish she had blamed him for softening her—for being so remarkably gentle and protecting her and for doing it in such an effortlessly non-suffocating way that she never wanted to rebel against his touch, his love. Draco had brushed that drunken confession off with a simple, "He's not around, of course he's not suffocating."

It was true. The distance had saved them, or at least that was what Blaise had been led to believe. Over Christmas holidays, instead of her traditional visit to the Malfoy Mansion, Blaise spent the holiday with Oliver and his family. Narcissa had cooed to Draco, "She's such a smart girl. Handsome, wealthy and pureblood to boot. They look so incredibly happy."

Of course, Draco never told Blaise's godmother that she had been hanging with the Gryffindor crowd of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and that whole lot. Oliver had practically purchased her way into a more comforting group than let's say the Slytherin seventh year girls. Blaise had never fit in with them. She had never quite been feminine enough for them, even though she had decidedly been very glamorous. But the matter was that she had been too masculine for them; too laid-back. She would often smoke, and not thin, dainty French cigarettes either, and take nips of Ogden's from a flask at the train station with the Slytherin boys—but other than that she was quieter, not very flashy or arrogant, but she was calculating and she was vain. She made very high marks and was even number two in her class—the first time the top three hadn't included a Ravenclaw.

* * *

But Lucius knew. Lucius knew because the Dark Lord knew. And oh, did he glare. He glared at Draco pensively for a moment over that supper with the Zabinis, and decided to confront Draco later about it.

"How can you let her, Draco? I am well aware that you have been master and commander of her financially for quite some time, and I had high hopes that in the cards you had some hand in her fate as well, but now I see you a groveling weakling—that Parkinson girl will have to be put on the back burner for quite some time until you can get control over Zabini again."

All of this said, quite ironically, whilst he thrust into the backend of the elder of the Zabini sisters. He came and in a frustrated voice, dismissed Draco from his chambers.

When Oliver finally had her in intimate embrace over spring holidays that year, he marveled at the warmth that was brought to her eyes when she was in his private company—and there was something so distinctly virginal about it that he knew it had been a long time coming and that it had only ever been for him. "My own little black-hearted Gryffindor in there," He had whispered post-coitus, upon drawing her into his arms as their bodies rested between cool, soft sheets. "Your soul is the most beautifully complex thing I've ever seen."

No legendary vixen as he had heard in the locker rooms, and oddly, it sparked within him a stronger bond to this lovely little girl, just of age and locked into his hold.

Of course, the pussy Malfoy's tears after a late lashing in her seventh year would take her away from him. Her loyalty was too deep-rooted and blind for her to see his smirk over her comforting shoulder, shot invisibly into the dark at Oliver. Unfortunately, Blaise Zabini had loved Oliver Wood, and while they may not have been in love and that exact four-letter word had not escaped her lips, the bond was too strong to prevent them from a friendship, and they were good friends.

* * *

So there she was, the physical embodiment of her years with Draco. Hair teased as he teased her, looking starved, as she was in every sense, the pristine little lullaby fairy forever waiting in the wings for her wings—dark lips, low chignon, dark eyes—looking quite manic and at the end of her leash.

She sat in her boudoir of the Malfoy Mansion, her place now at the age of nineteen and her place until marriage or her release from the contract her parents had signed as their wishes should they suffer the untimely death that they did—until her twenty-first birthday. She exhaled sharply and pulled in her stomach, the ivory skin forming a smooth curve inward. Her ribcage stuck out under her pert breasts and her hip bones jutted out nearly parallel to the soft curves of her hips and the shape fascinated her. Blaise sat there, the vivid blue silk striking against the black lace and her skin the perfect palette, and she looked there at her vanity, a collection of perfumes, with names like _Opium_ and _Poison_. One particular one stood at the height of the helm, black and gold steps leading up to its holier-than-thou perch. A fitting gift from Draco, the scent too gentle with its vanilla and too intensely overcompensating with its hibiscus. Robert had selected a very slender glass bottle with a sparkling pink liquid within, a crystalline snake resting in serpentine coils towards the top—an apple. His temptress, he had called her in lusty whispers. How people had gotten the impression that she loved perfumes was beyond her—the bottles were pretty and she had a great many, ranging from exotic, to opaque, to classic, to picturesque.

Oliver had known. Oliver had known she only appreciated the aesthetic value of these—many a suitor had been crushed when she never wore the scent that they had bestowed upon her. Marking their territory in the most canine of senses, Blaise thought it. The practice made her feel like a dog, and she was no dog.

She had, however, purchased a simple ceramic box with a cover molded much like the glistening waters of Loch Ness, and the infamous serpent coiled in it to spray the scent she had selected as her own—a reminder of the Scottish man who had forever changed her.

Draco hated the scent. He said it made her smell simple and common, two things he always insisted she weren't. Just as she would gather up the confidence or the alcohol to tell him what she thought of _that_, he would turn to someone else and start a conversation. She was his pawn and his addiction to her was only territorial, and she knew it.

Looking down at her make-up mournfully, Blaise lifted her mascara-ed eyes slowly, studying her reflection in the mirror Draco had cracked when they were eleven and a half, and he had insisted girls had cooties. A bit immature, Blaise had thought.

An old Muggle wives' tale said that breaking a mirror brought one seven years of bad luck. Since Blaise had always been blamed for the broken mirror, was it perhaps her luck that was bad?

It was in this divergent moment that Blaise didn't shed a tear, and instead reached for her wand, which rested in the garter holster so mythical and legendary to England's top wizards. She repaired the mirror so quietly the spell almost didn't work. And that was the turning point when Blaise Zabini decided that she was not going to be Draco's slave anymore. Victim no longer to the delicate noses and high cheekbones of this nobility that promised her no hope as they never quite lived up to the selective feature of the very word nobility.

Reaching for a secret pack of 'Duet' she had kept in her vanity drawer, dangerously hidden amongst the combustible powders and potions, she turned away from the vanity in the blue-tinted dark and lit one, exhaling the smoke into the dusky indigo night, the view of her boudoir so subtlety different now. She supposed she'd have to go downstairs now, practically the belle of the Malfoy Mansion, its female ward, its little starlet. Blaise wondered if Oliver might be there. He occasionally was when Ministry business came into the Malfoy Mansion, and it was then that Blaise caught sight of the deeper cobalt outside her lengthy windows.

"_Lumos._" She said with a more valiant strength and the deep crimson of the room finally made its appearance. She'd have to repair the damage done by too many years of Malfoy, but in actually wanting to do it with no hidden agenda stocked with vengeance, somehow she knew it wouldn't be as hard as she had once perceived it to be.

Blaise walked to those windows in her shoes and lingerie, flicking her cigarette so the ashes fell to the floor, and she put it out on Draco's picture, right over his heart, where she knew it needed to be burned out anyhow. Her dress waited for her on a sofa. She slipped it on over her head and without a check in the repaired mirror; she kicked the cigarette under the sofa for the house elves to find, ('Still the spoiled bitch,' She thought with a satisfied smile,) and left the room gingerly, her wand back in the holster. "Showtime."

* * *

To be continued...


	2. On Off

* * *

Disclaimer: Neither own On/Off (Snow Patrol) nor Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling, Twentieth Century Fox, Time Warner, and respective publishing companies). However, my intricate little ditty does belong to me.

> _Running away seemed like the easy  
Thing to do because I wanted time  
To put a smile back on my bitter face  
For once nothing's missing and I feel fine  
I was afraid to tell you some things  
But some things all find a way to get told  
Hearing it from the lips of somebody else  
Must have knocked the wind out of your sweet chest_

_Ready to Forgive _

**_Two _**

Blaise floated in about an hour past fashionably late and barely was there in time for dinner. Her partner for the night wouldn't mind of course, as he was her fun-loving playmate of her school years, Miles Bletchey. Draco, however, had a more exact standard for prudence.

"Nice of you to join us, my dear ward." Now head of the Malfoy house due to his father's unfortunate death in a rebellion during the uprising, Draco was more like a man playing house, especially when his coldly affectionate hiss attracted the attention of his gests. "Ladies and gentlemen, the young lady of the house, Miss Blaise Zabini."

Polite claps welcomed her into the ballroom and Draco's ghost butler dismissed everyone into the dining room directly afterwards.

"Where _have_ you been?" Draco demanded, gripping her bicep forcefully as they fell into line in the back of the crowd. "The party started at seven and here you are at nine fifteen. Have you any idea what people are likely to think?"

He let go of her as they entered the dining room to seated guests, looking like the prince and princess of the purebloods—almost practically bloody related, no pun intended.

"Ah, a toast is in order." Draco boomed as he and Blaise sped to their seats—his at the head of the table with Pansy and Blaise's not too far from it, placed next to Miles and across—across from Oliver Wood. "To the Ministry." He said abruptly and almost out of breath, chugging back the wine in his goblet with barely enough time for his guests to repeat it.

Oliver enjoyed seeing Draco so riled up by Blaise's presence. He rose his glass and winked across the table at the composed Malfoy Mansion resident. "To the Ministry." His Scottish R's rolled delightfully towards her ears and Blaise inhaled sharply.

Draco clapped his hands and the pewter platters running down the center of the long tables filled with food and he sat, slipping an arm around Pansy and dipping a hand at the lap of her robes and into the depths within the shocking pink silk, grinning politely at his guests. "Tuck in."

And that he did, looking pointedly over at Blaise, knowing she would be well aware of what they were doing.

But she was grinning far too widely at Oliver Wood for his comfort. "Draco is such a terribly immature boy to continue to invite you and place you directly across from me." Blaise whispered across the table, leaning over it gleefully.

"And you take far too much pleasure in teasing everyone in that dress of yours." Oliver chirped with a similarly devilish grin on his face, his own posture straight and nonchalant as he sat on the end of the four-person Wood line—mum, dad, and brother Lance.

"Had I known you were attending, I'd have more fun." Blaise flirted right back and Draco cleared his throat to indicate to Miles to watch his date.

Miles, however, was a bit too interested, for Draco's comfort, in the elder Zabini girl, whose husband was mysteriously absent from the festivities. Giving Miles an unseen evil eye, Draco returned his gaze to Oliver, but the young man had excused himself to go to the bathroom. Blaise, fortunately, was still wicked in her seat and hadn't followed him out.

Between the Ministry politics and the mayhem about to unfold, Draco was going to be very busy tonight.

* * *

Draco very much liked the image he was always saw Blaise dress up as at his large parties. She'd stand in the well-lit ballroom, just on the outskirts of its social circle, with her date nearby, her right hand settled into the nook of her left elbow, and a cigarette between her left hand's fingers. He never could smoke with his left hand. She'd be slightly slouched, and then she'd pop the cigarette into her mouth, search her date's pocket for his wand, he'd light it for her, and then she'd drag him out to the terrace. It was just glamorous enough to be affectionately thought of as, "Oh, that Blaise," by the elder of the upper crust, but just pathetic enough to remind her date that she was forever Draco's girl.

But now she was a little too happy for his taste. Whenever her date was of the 'original' line-up of the Slytherin Quidditch team, he was slightly worried, but knowing that they answered to Draco within the Dark Lord's circles, he was fine—they were practically her chaperones.

Intending for Oliver's invitation to be a polite extension of the Woods' Ministry status, and a sharp jab at the depressed Malfoy ward, Draco watched his plans spin out of control, as Miles found solace over in the elder Zabini sister's corner and Blaise laughed it up with Oliver Wood at a table, sitting and smoking, leaning back in her chair and looking too happy for Draco's taste.

He could see the Witch Weekly tidbit now, either that or the Daily Prophet's society section.

The still single Oliver Wood is finding fun in ex-love Blaise Zabini's court yet again as the two yukked it up at the ingénue's residency, the Malfoy Mansion, during a Ministry party late Saturday night. The two flirted over the feast planned by Blaise's guardian and contemporary, Draco Malfoy, and retired to the ballroom for a smoke and a laugh, much like old times, sparking rumors amongst Draco Malfoy's guests that a reunion is in order.

Oh, bloody hell, now they'd both disappeared.

"Do you always come upstairs and kiss the boys, Sparkplug?" Oliver whispered in affectionate, teasing tones as Blaise struggled to put one foot in front of the other like she had been taught by Narcissa the second she had turned thirteen. One drink usually robbed her of the ability.

"Only into Draco's room." She giggled, twisting and backing into a door, letting Oliver in. "Never my own."

They stood in her darkened doorway for a moment, and Oliver smiled softly down at his ex-girlfriend, the familiar mischief in her eye still a head shorter than his. "Let me take off my makeup." She murmured, rising onto the tips of her toes, her breath hot on his Adam's apple.

"Do." Oliver followed her in, shutting the door behind them.

* * *

"Take over, will you, love? I've got to fish Wood out of trouble." Draco whispered into Pansy's ear and she smiled up fondly at him.

"She is such a nuisance." Pansy whispered back to him, and she loved how they discussed Blaise like she was some sort of pesky little sister. "I'll hold down the fort."

They kissed briefly. The picture perfect couple.

* * *

"You seem to be playing dress-up here." Oliver commented with a smirk, sitting directly across from Blaise in her dimly lit boudoir, both settled into lush crimson chairs. "Your hair's darker."

"You're the first to notice." Blaise replied casually, sipping some thin liquid in an intricate glass. She raised it. "Want one?"

Oliver shook his head, glancing over at her vanity. "I see you still have your collection."

"Only one's ever used." Blaise interrupted his thoughts and his smirk, and he studied her face for a moment. "I bought it myself."

"Malfoy allowed you enough allowance?" Oliver asked almost coldly. Blaise ignored his tone.

"I told Pansy I needed it. Hate as I may to answer to her, she loves it when I spite Draco." Blaise rose from her chair and put the glass on her vanity table, lifting the ceramic box that held sixty-four ounces of the scent to indicate her favorite. "_Loch Ness_."

She strode closer to him. He could smell the earthy, fresh scent on her, and he closed his eyes, taking in the dulcet remnant of home. "You smell like Scotland."

* * *

Draco scowled. She wasn't in his bedroom, vengefully fucking one of his enemies or competitors in his bed, as she had taken up to doing in their fifth year.

Over dinner once, when Pansy decided to play mother to the orphaned Blaise, who was actually only six weeks older than her, Pansy had asked Blaise who she had expected the great love of her life to be. Draco had just had another fight with Blaise, and she quite honestly stared them both in the eye, from one end of the dining table to the other, and said, "Oliver Wood."

"Ooooh. Why ever did you split with him, honey?" Pansy asked, as they were both served a significant amount of blancmange.

"I was led to believe he was the wrong choice for me." Blaise had answered.

"And now?" Draco asked, drinking from his recently refilled cup.

"I was led astray."

Draco punched the wall beneath a torch, and it fell to the floor, lighting the hem of his robe. He put it out absentmindedly, and knew not to prolong his absence, returning to the party and intending to return to his search later.

* * *

"Well, at least I know your intentions." Oliver said with a laugh, knocking back a sip of Blaise's drink. She sat on the edge of his chair, his free hand resting on her hip, his strong Keeper arm behind her.

"How do you mean?" Blaise whispered, leaning in rather close to his lips to fetch her drink seductively.

"You've quite a reputation for luring your lovers into Draco Malfoy's bed in the least homoerotic sense imaginable to spite him." Oliver's voice was a perplexing blend of bitter and warm tones, like an espresso coffee too long left under her tongue. "So in the very least, you've grown up a bit."

"Egomaniac." She laughed into his ear. "You mean to imply that you're irresistible?"

"Am I?" Oliver asked honestly, pulling her into his lap playfully and splashing the last sip of her drink out onto her dress. It landed between the 'V' of her collarbone.

"Going to get that?" She asked with a wink, shifting further into his thighs.

"Come on, Blaise." Oliver muttered, sitting up straight. Blaise climbed backwards up onto the armrest she had perched on seconds before. "You know you don't want to do this."

"What do you mean?" She squeaked, setting her drink down on an end table.

"Blaise, it's traditional for you to bring your dates up here to have fun and I thought—well, I thought that us not going into the master suite meant this was platonic." Oliver winced and scooted as far away as he could from Blaise's perch.

"Platonic?" Blaise repeated almost weakly. "I don't sit like this with my platonic friends, Oliver."

"Yes, yes you do." Oliver couldn't believe she was doing this. Two years of hard work to get to this point and now she was trying to undo it all for her cheap lust. He stood up and turned his back to her, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"No, I _don't_." Blaise stood up hotly. How dare he?

"You've sat like that with me in private ever since—even before we were going out." Oliver explained flatly.

"It's because I like you, Ollie, I always have." Blaise retorted, rolling her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat as the light flickered. It was darker now, and the poignant soliloquy in the blue tones of her boudoir earlier that evening flashed back to her. Did she have the guts to tell him that she loved him and nearly always had?

She was close enough in saying she had always liked him.

"You think I'm some sort of man-eater, don't you? Haven't you always?" Blaise shrieked, her bratty side taking over her.

"Merlin, no!" Oliver turned back and underneath her riled stature, and her silk and lace, he saw her frustration and her confusion. "You smell like Scotland, for Morgan's sake, when you could smell like brandy, or silk or something exotic and the like. You smoke fucking Duets, even though you have boxes of Solos at your disposal, just because of its sentimental attachments—and you're friends with me. Bradley is so much better for you, but I don't see you dragging him upstairs in the papers all the time…you're just…I don't…"

"I don't know either." Blaise interrupted him gently, and for the first time, Oliver saw how small she had become.

"You're so thin." Blaise didn't reply to that. He tried to laugh to lighten the mood. "Do you realize how much trouble you would have gotten me into if we hadn't waited until after you were of age to have sex?"

"I liked the wait…it wasn't because of my age." Blaise answered hollowly and Oliver nodded in agreement.

"It wasn't."

"Have we both gone too far as to the point where you're indifferent to my charms, Oliver?" Blaise asked tentatively. "Because the deepest lash you can cut into me is being indifferent to me, Oliver."

"I don't know, Blaise." He said, and the girl drew herself into his embrace. "I don't know."

"I'm trying to be better."

"I know."

**_

* * *

_**

"It puzzles me as to why the three of you play dress up all day long." Oliver muttered, still a safe, nonsexual distance from Blaise as they both sauntered along a village path on that bright following Monday. Blaise had an ice cream in one hand and a folded, fresh copy of _Witch Weekly_ in the other.

"Apparently, we had hot, hot, hot sex." Blaise announced with a none-too-innocent lick of her ice cream, and the fifteen-year-old Muggle schoolgirls exchanged a look and giggled.

"Well, Blaisie, I forgot to tell you, but it was pretty damned good." Oliver said, his voice a decibel lower and eyes slightly panicked as he rushed to catch up with Blaise as to not be left in the crowd of children going to school.

"I mean Saturday night." Blaise lifted up her magazine to show him a photo of her stretched over the table as Oliver whispered into her ear, both looking devilishly flirtatious. "I love how they use the Muggle way when they want to imply something."

"Recently entered Splitsville Oliver Wood appears to be divulging a secret into the ear of friend and ex-love Blaise Zabini as the two spent their last minutes among the other guests of a Ministry party late Saturday night at the Malfoy Mansion, where the nineteen-year-old Zabini is a resident, the ward of contemporary Draco Malfoy. Twenty-three-year old Wood disappeared with Zabini none too late into the post-supper festivities and did not appear until early morning when the party began to break up. The two flirted over dinner and were having such a time, with Miss Zabini characteristically smoking and both laughing, that they sparked rumors that a romantic reunion is in order between the platonic pals. If the handsome pair's new venture is anything like their old fling, a guarantee of hot, intimate moments are bound to play out for their spectators' amusement. Let's leave them to their private reverie in front of hundreds of the Ministry's best." Oliver spat on it. "What a crock of shit."

"Oh, but darling, didn't you hear? That Blaise Zabini's a real man-eater." Blaise drawled, grinning at him over her ice cream and taking the magazine away from him.

"Now, I never said that." Oliver defended himself hotly, and then he looked down at the brunette troublemaker. She tucked the magazine in his belt. "You're one confusing little nutter."

"I love the moor in autumn." Blaise whispered breathily, throwing her head back as the path turned into a stone edge of a hill that rose a good ten feet in the air above the next path.

"Merlin, Blaisie, you're going to kill yourself." Oliver rushed along the little stone balance and scooped her up. "Where exactly is it we're walking to?"

"Why, can't handle it?" Blaise taunted, as the path below them grew lower into oblivion. "There's a way to get to Hogsmeade from here, I know it."

"How do you?" Oliver muttered, dipping his head and stopping to get a lick of ice cream.

"Marcus got me lost out here once in sixth year before I started dating Robert…last time for us, I suppose." Oliver noticeably stiffened at the mention of his archrival, Marcus Flint.

"You're supposing then?" Oliver's lilt was a little harder than she had anticipated and she broke it to him gently.

"He's very happily married, supposedly, last time I heard from the papers, Oliver. And, harpy that I am, I still won't touch marriage with a Firebolt. Engagements come and go, but marriage…that should be forever." He trudged in silence for some time, and Blaise tossed her ice cream over his shoulder.

"That's an awfully old-fashioned sentiment for such a man-eater."

"Oh, not this again."

* * *

****

And so began the story of Oliver Wood trying to delve deeper into the enigma of one of the greatest girlfriends he had ever had.

She listed the old crowd for him. They had been, in order of graduation years, Higgs, Flint, Bole, Derrick, Bletchey, Montague, Bletchey, Pucey, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott and Malfoy.

"A great lot of bastards if I ever knew so many." Oliver had growled, trying to mask his distaste and his jealousy. Higgs had been the nicest of the bunch, he'd say. The pair played alongside each other now.

"Oh, Higgs wasn't too terrible. When he was in the reserve for Puddlemere, he'd usually try to hand me off a ciggy before Marcus tried to—well, you know." Blaise flushed like a little schoolgirl, her feet not hitting the floor as they both sat at the bar of the Three Broomsticks. She had been right in leading him through Scotland, smelling like the moor no matter how faintly it seemed.

"Do you remember this game you'd play with me when we were at my house for Christmas?" Oliver whispered, and when Blaise leaned into him, it comforted him to know that in the two days that they had spent together, her shoulders didn't jab him sharply anymore.

"Guess which color my knickers are?" Blaise asked with a bright smile, and Oliver nodded, slouched over. He pulled Blaise closer to him.

"Um…pink."

"Damn you." Blaise muttered, slapping a Knut down onto the counter, as was tradition.

"You are so simple when it comes to picking out your knickers." Oliver said with a laugh, pocketing the Knut.

"How do you mean?" Blaise asked, pulling away from his hand, somewhat insulted.

"You've always worn pink knickers on Mondays." Not always, Blaise silently retorted.

"Well, for a Sickle, guess what kind." She snapped, miffed.

"Give me some sort of word bank or something, like on good old Flitwick's tests." Oliver requested, and she thought about it slowly.

"Um…lace, mesh, satin, cotton, or silk?" Nice long, diverse list.

"Oh, today seems definitely like a pink lace knickers day. And for these very same indecently announced pink lace knickers, let me guess the cut…low-rise briefs." Blaise glared at him.

"How'd you know?"

"I peeked up your skirt when I scooped you up earlier."

Blaise grinned and stood, the bar empty, and slowly slid her pink lacy low-rise briefs down towards her ankles and gingerly stepped out of them, slapping them down on the bar with a Sickle. "Naughty, naughty Scotsman."

"Don't you know it." Oliver drawled, swigging back another sip of butterbeer.

"Ollie, you weren't a virgin when we—"

"God no!" Oliver interrupted harshly, gripping Blaise rather roughly by the hip and drawing her in. "Merlin, don't be directing the word virgin at any over-eighteen Scotsman near his hometown, don't you know what kind of reputation you'll give me?"

"You were probably sexually active before I was." Blaise said with a pout.

"Probably and don't you worry about it, alright? You were certainly no virgin by the time I got to you." The neutrality in his tone surprised both Blaise and Oliver.

"Who was your first?" Blaise continued, her tone lingering into curiosity.

"Patricia Stimpson…we dated my last year at Hogwarts and she was about two years my junior. It's kind of cheesy, but she took me up to my dorm really late after this party in the Gryffindor Common Room after we won the Cup and showed me she was very much worthy of having an older boyfriend…a little too worthy for my taste."

"And quite a few Quidditch whores after that." Blaise snipped, knowing she shouldn't have asked.

"No, just Katie Bell the year before you…and a few groupies, I'll admit—but you were quite the avid fan when you were chasing me, if I can recall." Oliver was surprised it didn't sting to talk about

"Katie Bell? Oh, she's…"

"Marcus Flint's ex-girlfriend; yes…seems everyone's had their way with Flint." Oliver joked, and Blaise's face fell.

"I never slept with him, you know." Blaise paused, and didn't know how to continue or quite how to phrase things. "I've…only had two partners, really…when it came down to the whole nine yards."

"Oh. Right then."

Blaise realized she hadn't asked him about his work—then again, he hadn't asked her about her own, which was infamously pretty futile. "So…" The air itched with discomfort. "How's Puddlemere?"

"Good. Strong. Happy." Seemed characteristically Oliver enough for her…monosyllabic but sincere grunts.

"Can I guess what kind of knickers _you're_ wearing?" Blaise joked, scolding herself inwardly for finding her way back to that subject.

"I'll tell you." Oliver fingered the bright pink lacy low-rise briefs on the counter delicately, looking back at her poignantly. He hadn't forgotten how slim her legs had been.

"There's no fun in that." Blaise said flatly, shifting on her perch awkwardly.

"Oh, but there is." Oliver retorted and for a second there, he thought he was going to lose control and fall for this fiery riddle again.

"Let me guess." Quite fortunately for the both of them, Blaise recognized she needed to be the strength at this moment. "Bets on…just Knuts."

"Right then." Oliver didn't reach for his pants pocket.

"Um…cut or color first?"

"Your choice."

"What am I more likely to get?" Blaise didn't play risky with her bets when she wasn't confident, Oliver suddenly realized, and she unfolded to be even more complex every time he saw her.

It didn't please him that he struck her with such an awe that her confidence vanished. That sort of thing only stroked Malfoy's flames.

"I don't know, really…it's tough to say." Oliver smiled at her, almost deliriously lightheaded. There was no purpose to really thinking at the moment.

"Um…boxers?"

"Pay up." She slapped a Knut on the table, and Oliver realized how very rich he could become with this game.

"Boxer briefs?" Another Knut. "Briefs." Another Knut. "Long, frilly little things?" Another Knut. "Okay…moving onto color." 'I can buy myself a Daily Prophet soon.' He thought, the grin stretching across his face like a languid cat during a summer nap. "Prints in general?" Another Knut. Then he could read about himself in the society pages, which was a section he did not belong to. "Solids?" Oliver shook his head and pushed the sixth Knut back to the little brunette.

"You'll need it to eat."

Blaise frowned. "Well, if you're not bloody well wearing any underwear, this game's a bit over then, isn't it?"

"And here I thought you would be pleased at my daring." Oliver joked, and she reached for the Knuts. "Nuh-uh-uh…I need to buy myself a paper to find out that we're getting married next week."

Blaise shoved him angrily until he toppled to the floor. She stood up, crossing her arms."You are evil."

"And you are a brat." He answered, looking up at her with a very large grin, still gripping her pink lacy panties.

Blaise broke into a fit of laughter and smoothed her skirt over her hamstrings, sitting down on Oliver's chest and crossing her ankles modestly. "Heiress and Quidditch player find themselves in interesting gambling predicament near children's school."

"Hell, they're probably getting more in one dormitory than I'll be getting from you in three years." Blaise backed her ankle into the side of his ribs. "Alright, alright. Get up off of me and we'll go grab some real food at the home."

Blaise diffidently stood up, sniffing with distaste. "You have become a right pervert, Oliver Wood."

"If you were as starved for sex as all the papers claim a Quidditch player is right after off-season, you would have to." Oliver replied, standing up.

"Well, is it true?" Blaise asked, her cheeks coloring.

"Extended season because of the World Cup…then training…not so much…" Oliver answered, offering her his arm. "Would you like your knickers back, Blaise?"

"Keep them. Toss them down on the table at dinner tonight. Nonchalantly, of course." Blaise said vindictively. "Pansy would love the show."

"And I'm assuming the master of the house wouldn't?" Oliver inquired, a grin returning to the high corners of his lips.

"He wouldn't think it were appropriate." Blaise whispered back at him and Oliver found himself in a right predicament—at the strangest crossroads he'd ever been. The paths of happy but unfulfilling platonic friendship were in the very least; clear enough to see the rocks in the road. The physical and volatile return to a land he wasn't quite sure was ready for colonizing yet veered off course and would be a very consuming waste of time if she were only in it for vengeance. It wasn't even really a road—just an interruption in the platonic path that led up to some strange Mecca in the distance. He wasn't quite even sure that he'd quite forgiven her for leading him off course in the first place, even if he had ventured into a city of jewels and faded Oriental scents that blended into his of the moors so well.

"Right then." He answered, as she stared at him, his eyes reading ambiguously. His answer must have taken a minute or so too long, but Oliver pocketed the lacy pink panties despite his doubts.

If she were ready for a bit of fun, he was ready for some too. He deserved it, didn't he?


	3. Shoot the Moon

Disclaimer: Neither own Shoot the Moon (Norah Jones) nor Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling, Twentieth Century Fox, Time Warner, and respective publishing companies). However, my intricate little ditty does belong to me.

> _The summer days are gone too soon  
You shoot the moon  
And miss completely  
And now you're left to face the gloom  
The empty room that once smelled sweetly  
Of all the flowers you plucked if only  
You knew the reason  
Why you had to each be lonely  
Was it just the season?  
Now the fall is here again  
You can't begin to give in  
It's all over_

**_

* * *

_**

_Apologies Accepted_

_**Three**_

There's a terrible pomp and circumstance when two purebloods of well-respected families get married for the first time. There were so many wedding heirlooms for the years that these families had existed, and to tie together so many purebloods by one link, welding together two entire clans and all their traditions, the ceremony mourned the loss of an entire separate lineage, but celebrated the union as they were becoming so rare these days.

It seemed as though in all this hysteria that Blaise had forgotten that Pansy and Draco were actually engaged. As Blaise brushed Pansy's hair back for her before they fitted the ancient champagne lace mantilla to Pansy's head. They pinned the flat veil edged in one large, long ruffle of lace to her crown, and Blaise couldn't help but remark how pretty a bridal glow made someone appear. Pansy was remarkably silent as Blaise buttoned the back of her dress. The beaded lace bodice had been dyed beige and a round hem below the waist attached to the full organza skirt that led into a Grand Cathedral train, roughly ten yards from the waist, and when Pansy turned, a vision of different shades of ivory, Blaise smiled faintly.

"I can't believe it." Pansy whispered in the privacy of the Parvati Patil House of Design's back rooms. "It's finally happening."

Blaise nodded distractedly, and Pansy continued on about the many traditions of the Malfoy and Parkinson lines, pulling all the way back to their roots in the Black and Hathvisham houses. Two girls scurried to Blaise's side, their wands following instructions they were extremely focused on. While Pansy's gown was soft and romantic, and going to be covered with a thin and gown-molding dress robe with bell sleeves and transparent fabric, it was apparent that Pansy intended for everyone to remember Blaise's place—behind her.

Blaise really wanted a cigarette. The sheath was off the shoulder with a beaded collar and it was body hugging in a silvery periwinkle silk, and beads draping across the bodice and then tightly hand sewn to every centimeter of the pencil skirt which tapered off below the knee, a beaded train following her. Pansy's soft blonde waves beneath her mantilla would contrast the sharp and undone up do she had in mind for Blaise's darker locks.

Blaise watched the quiet London street below as the two girls who had just practically been drawing the dress on her try to run some shoe choices by Pansy. "I was thinking of moving into the London place for a while…to get out of your hair…I'm terrible at this wedding stuff."

"But, Blaisie, you're my maid of honor!" Somehow Pansy didn't sound too devastated. "Oh, well, I'm sure Tracey and Daphne can handle it. Sounds like fun."

"Hmmm…"

"So…what happened Saturday night?" Pansy thought about her curves overflowing in her gown and what would make her look thinner…perhaps if she looked taller. "High heels."

"What do you mean?" Blaise exhaled, her fingers drumming on her beaded hip as a need for nicotine filled her blood. Shouldn't her witch blood be fighting the Muggle habit?

"No, not stilettos, I don't want to be teetering down the aisle, you nitwit!" Pansy exclaimed, looking back at Blaise, who looked cool in her gown. "I mean Oliver. I know you spent Monday with him."

"I did." Blaise's thighs tried to rub together, but the dress was too tight. It was then that she remembered Oliver still had her panties.

"Oh, Blaise, I'm so happy for you. I'm getting married and you seem to be working it out with Oliver…" Pansy cooed, applying lip-gloss to her lips with her fingertip. "Oh, I'm thinking you should be in open-toe kitten heels…beaded, to go with the ensemble…"

"Hmmm…" Blaise agreed absentmindedly.

"Miss Zabini? You have a visitor…a male visitor." Parvati announced upon entering in billowing robes, kissing both of Pansy's cheeks enthusiastically.

"It's Draco trying to see me in my dress! Blaise, _go_! And remember you're staying in the London suite tonight!" Pansy brushed her out, and Blaise rolled her eyes, struggling to strut across the room.

She exited and pulled the hairpin out of her hair as she closed the door with her hip. She was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't Draco.

"Oliver! How'd you know I'd be here?" Blaise exclaimed, standing on her bare tiptoes and throwing her arms around him, only hearing a split in her dress, some beads dripping onto the floor.

"Eager to show me your knickers again, Zabini?" Oliver asked, pulling from her embrace with a grin.

"Merlin be damned, I hate this dress." Blaise looked around the richly decorated, chestnut couture shop and smirked. "Not your kind of place, is this?"

"Do you have a minute?" Oliver asked tentatively, and Blaise shrugged.

"Let me get out of this dress and we'll be good." Blaise said casually, turning back to the back rooms.

"Still stripping for me, Blaise? You're such a slut." Oliver teased, and Blaise turned, searching his eyes for a glimmer of belief in his statements.

Shaking it off as paranoia, she should've known he was plainly joking. She slipped back into Pansy's dressing room, unzipping her dress with the flick of a wand. "I've got to go, Pansy…a friend's caught up with me."

Blaise looked back at Pansy as she redressed, and the girl was lost in her own world of romantic whims. A week ago, this facial expression would have already been ass-paralyzing dull and Blaise would have rolled her eyes. Her features softened, smirk still ubiquitous, and she reached into her jacket's interior pocket for her cigarettes. She stuck one in her mouth, and for the second time in the day and her second time in several years, Blaise Zabini conceded that Pansy Parkinson was pretty.

Kind of.

* * *

"How the fucking hell did they manage to follow us to Scotland?" Blaise demanded as they sat at a Muggle London café with fish and chips. She spat, rather unladylike, and it landed right above a picture of the retreating backs of the pair as Blaise skipped down the path, Oliver pensively a few steps behind her, reading. There were more shots—including Blaise tucking a magazine into Oliver's belt and Oliver carrying her down the stone trail towards Hogsmeade.

"Well, at least they didn't get the pink knickers incident on camera." Oliver chirped, mouth half-full. "Let me see this."

Oliver laughed at the pictures a little poignantly. He could see why people were drawing their conclusions. "Old Spark Rekindles Close to Puddlemere Home."

The pair, both dressed in casual Muggle clothing, leaned back in their chairs across from each other, and they both had a paper coffee cup in one hand, and a tabloid magazine in the other.

_Snap._

"It seems as though during the crazy hijinks of wedding-planning for close friends Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini finds time for a relaxing day trip—with ex-boyfriend Oliver Wood." Blaise rolled her eyes and took a sip of her coffee. "Close friends."

"The two looked like the previous Saturday was only the beginning of a series of cozy reunions they seem to be staging all over the whole of Great Britain." Oliver's voice dipped to a quieter volume, "Muggle or Magic, there doesn't seem to be a day going by without the pair in each other's company."

"We're only proving them right, in their shallow little minds." Blaise muttered, polishing off her food.

"Visit me tomorrow, on the pitch." Oliver suggested, finishing off his coffee with a refreshed sigh.

"So you can get a mid-shower shag?" Blaise asked coolly, raising one eyebrow and then meeting his eye playfully.

"Implied, but of course, never enforced." Oliver retorted, leaning over on the table, arms crossed.

"As long as you bring a rubber ducky." Blaise whispered, and they both sat back, reminiscing of their days before, ducking in and out of the Muggle world to find solace and privacy.

Their eyes did not meet. There was something oddly sensual in the air, and Blaise detected the clean scent of laundry, combined with the baking and frying smells from within the hole-in-the-wall café. For some reason, although it terribly had nothing to do with her own home, it reminded her of the very sensation of being in a warm kitchen surrounded by the loving family she had never had.

"My mother very much enjoyed your gift the other day." Oliver said finally, standing up to clear their table.

"Hmm?" Blaise asked distractedly, rising to join him.

"The perfume. And I noticed it wasn't one of the ones of your dressing table, so I enjoyed it too." Oliver continued, pausing to smile at her. "Little Blaise—it's quite lovely watching how wonderful you continue to become."

"Do you mean to say that I wasn't wonderful before?" Blaise teased, following him, and after he threw their trash away, he turned and they collided delicately.

"No, not at all." Oliver said rather quickly, seeming out of breath.

Blaise realized it was he who smelled of clean laundry so radiantly…and minty toothpaste combined with the aftertastes of fish and chips. Of course, her own scent of fish and chips, minty toothpaste and Scotland weren't to be ignored and in that second of searing body heat, the scents blended, and Blaise was suddenly struck homesick in the oddest of senses.

"Well, you have to get on to practice, don't you?" She said suddenly, also sounding out of breath as she stumbled backward to break the air between them.

"Right." Oliver agreed hastily, and he hesitated forward, his movements like a stutter. He pulled her awkwardly into a hug, but the lingering of it on both their parts ached them both just a little. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow then. Practice is over at five."

Blaise nodded, suddenly realizing how cold it was outside. They both stood in silence for a moment, and then broke into uncomfortable grins and waved goodbye and split their separate ways.

As soon as she was around the corner, Blaise stopped, closed her eyes and sighed. She continued but with a more massive heart, made of a consistency that was once light fluff but had somehow gotten whipped into a heavy cream that weighed her down as she walked.

* * *

Blaise sighed happily when she opened the thin blue curtains of the curved window. Her room in London was simply exquisite. Steps led up to the floor-to-ceiling window set in the curved wall, and thick, bright green silk curtains cushioned the thin blue, and then there was a long balcony over a very exquisite garden. The room was light, and airy, and although had a very cozy air around it, was distinctly modern and fresh.

It was morning. There was something about having a whole apartment to herself—or rather, just away from Draco—that made her so peaceful. Blaise was freshly showered, teeth just brushed, face cleansed, exfoliated and moisturized, lips glossed and eyes lined. She closed the bright blue orbs and took in the scent of the place.

Something was off. The room felt right—decorated with her quirkiness in mind, her favored lightness of heart, and the few cozy touches that secretly reminded her of the room she had occupied whenever she visited Oliver's parents' house, and it felt right, she thought as she threw down a round silk floor pillow from the pile and sat on it. She stuck her tongue out, seeing if the air was poisoned. No…it seemed fine. And it was usually silent around here, so that wasn't what was odd—

It smelled like Scotland. That was it. The last time she had put on perfume in here, Draco had just given her that snooty perfume and the few visits after that, the scent still lingered. But the place was clean of any smell, except for _Loch Ness._

A smile stretched across Blaise's face as she stood only to throw herself backwards back onto the bed lazily. It was so wonderful here.

It had to have been mid-afternoon. Blaise was used to waking up with a rigid schedule, being there with Pansy exactly at seven thirty, waiting for Draco at the breakfast table. Blaise yawned and stood, not bothering to put back anything. At home, she had to be meticulously neat. She walked out of the room and towards the large kitchen, grinning at the thought of making herself a bagel instead of having a rather filling and fully balanced meal.

Sitting on a stool and thickly spreading cream cheese on her bagel, she looked up at the clock. It was three o' clock and her hair wasn't dry.

Blaise grabbed one half of the bagel and went into Draco's study, where she knew he had a stack of Portkey request cards. She filled one out with a random quill lying about, dipping it into violent purple ink, and snapped her fingers. The exquisite and expensive owl's cage, complete with automatically refilling food and water dishes, self-cleaning charms, and several different commands for the cage's locks, opened with a silent fluidity. The superbly fast and handsome resident of the cage flew to the desk, sticking out his claw eagerly. Quickly she tied the request form to his claw and rushed to the window, sending up the sash and watching the snowy owl speed out with delight.

She sat back in Draco's chair idly, finishing off her bagel half before walking out, not at all noticing a tattered contract sitting near the stack of Portkey request forms.

Break 

"So…Wood…when were you going to tell us about your little reunion with Zabini?" Terrence Higgs asked casually as the all-male Puddlemere United team trudged into their locker room, all sweating profusely.

"Don't see how it's any of your business." Wood replied shortly, and they all knew the instant he had said it he didn't mean it as harshly as it had come out.

The Puddlemere United team was a very rowdy bunch of boys; all from different houses and different years of Hogwarts. But they all had something passionately in common—they loved Quidditch, and cared not for anyone who stopped them from it, which included the likes of You-Know-Who. They actually cared for each other a great deal, having made it up through the Reserve team nearly all together.

"Right then." Ethan Reed declared joyfully. "She's a feisty little bugger, I warn you."

"Shut up, Reed, what would you know?" Higgs snapped. Higgs had been captain for several years, ever since Wadock had retired, and he was very protective of Zabini, as it were. He had taken her immediately under his wing in his final year at Hogwarts, and only liked talking to Wood about her. "So when did you two start hanging out again?"

"There's nothing really going on." Wood answered bashfully as everyone sat down to remove their body armor. "We've always been friends."

"Let's put it this way, Wood." Reed began, throwing an arm around Wood's bruised shoulders. "I'm friends with you, but I wouldn't be caught dead smoking with you at a private table at a party, skipping in Scotland with you, putting a magazine in your belt, being scooped up in your arms, or enjoying an intimate lunch of fish and chips with you, and I'm only talking about the past few days—I'd never give you late night massages with takeout, even in my hotel room. Hell, I'd never do anything with you, Wood—at least not in public."

All the guys guffawed, and Wood rolled his eyes, pulling off his shirt

"He has a point, mate." Higgs chimed in, peeling his own shirt off.. "For once."

"I _happen_ to be extremely philosophical." Reed defended himself, standing up on a bench. "There once was a woman from Surrey—"

"Oh, don't start!" Several of the team's members demanded nearly in chorus, and at that moment, Alicia Spinnet led Blaise Zabini in.

"Christ, Spinney, you could give a man a little warning!" Higgs exclaimed with a distinct flush growing over his Quidditch-red face, modestly pulling his shirt back on.

Alicia scowled and said, "Wood, you have a visitor."

Blaise waved at Higgs a little wave of acknowledgement.

"Oy, Spinney…" Higgs muttered as he followed the team's blonde assistant manager out of the locker room.

"Higgs, you smell."

"Oh, Spinney, I'm sure you can handle it."

The boys all laughed faintly as the pair exited, and Blaise stood rather uncomfortably in the doorway. Oliver smiled weakly at her and tapped at the space Higgs had left unoccupied across from him.

"Get here alright?" Oliver asked

Blaise nodded. She waved at the guys she had come to know through many travels, but turned back to grin at Oliver. "I came for that mid-shower shag."

"I wouldn't do that in public," Ethan began merrily, a twinkle in his eye, "With Wood either."

After saying that, the boys of the Quidditch team: Ethan, Kevin, Sam, Jerome, and Brian, magically seemed to disappear to the showers.

"Well, my ears are burning." Blaise said simply after a moment, and she suddenly became very aware of exactly how sweaty and undressed Oliver was. She turned away heatedly.

"It may be due to the fact that you're turning red, my dear." Oliver muttered with a grin. "Oh, come on, Zabini, don't act so virginal. You've seen me more naked than this."

'But that was when we were dating.' Blaise wanted to say, and the thought occurred to both parties.

"So why am I up here, again?" She asked on an exhale, looking around nervously, primly sitting in the midst of perspired-on Quidditch clothes and equipment.

"So we could…you know…have a private talk, away from the cameras." The idea sounded silly even as it rested on Oliver's tongue. A droplet fell onto a shoulder Blaise's jacket had just revealed. "Your hair's still wet."

Blaise nodded. "Didn't get up until two thirty today. 'Twas quite proud of myself, I was."

Oliver smiled and shook himself out of it. "Want to go get some food at my house?"

"Still living with your parents, Wood?" Blaise asked with a grin.

"No…" Wood mumbled in a false sarcastic and whiney voice.

"Go shower, you wanker. You smell." Blaise demanded with a bright smile, putting her hands beside her hips and leaning forward. He followed her orders silently and she picked up the magazine beneath her hand. She began reading the tabloid, not extremely interested in the pictures of her lunch with Oliver yesterday, and flipped to read the secrets of Pansy's wedding.

The sounds of the shower now the only thing being heard, besides some off-key singing of some Muggle rock tune, Blaise felt a little better. She was in quiet, and quiet was for once a lot more comfortable than in the clamor of rowdy boys.

The soft sounds of kissing suddenly reached her ears, and Blaise sat up, alert. Passionately entangled, Terrence and Alicia moved awkwardly into the locker room, and Blaise cleared her throat. The pair broke apart, and appeared to have been in a heated argument the last time she had seen them.

"Right then…" Blaise whispered, her eyes directed towards the floor as she stood. "Could the two of you just remember to tell Oliver I'm waiting outside? …didn't mean to interrupt…"

"Zabini!" Terrence cried faintly and none too sincerely. "Christ, I'm sorry, Spinney."

"Higgs, you smell." Came the cold reply as Alicia tried not to fight a grin. She pushed him towards the showers. "Go on! Tell Wood as you boys try to keep away from each other's sex appeal."

"Right-o, then, boss…" Terrence whispered, pulling her in gently for a quick kiss and then walking backwards towards the showers, stumbling over a shin guard, but still looking arrogantly happy.

* * *

Draco Malfoy sat up as Pansy rode him happily, their skulls smashing together. "Where's Blaise, Pansy?"

"God, do you know how to kill a mood." Pansy whispered, dipping her head for a scorching kiss. Draco threw her off of his lap.

"Seriously, Pansy, where's Blaise? She hasn't been at meals for the past few days." Draco said in earnest, pushing off the silk sheets from around his knees.

"She skips meals sometimes." Pansy muttered off-handedly, still wrapped in a passionate daze, and she crawled across the bed to get back into Draco's embrace. He pushed her away.

"She doesn't need to. If anyone needs to around here, it's you." Draco stood and pulled on a long velvet chord near his bed to call one of his house elves.

"Draco Malfoy!" Pansy exclaimed hotly.

"Blinky, where is Miss Zabini?" Draco practiced casually, and Pansy's eyes narrowed.

"I've forgotten." Pansy said through gritted teeth, "I gave her permission to go live in the London apartment for a while. She herself admitted she's no good at this wedding stuff and only wanted to be out of our hair. I see now that she's never quite so."

Draco ignored her and in his anger, stalked out of the room and instead of into his study, was in Pansy's frilly boudoir of minty green and glittering pink. The four tabloids strewn across the table didn't surprise him. Pansy read them with great joy, especially since most of the people featured were fairly good friends of hers, and she loved to see them publicly humiliated. The one on top was the least recent; featuring a fairly large photo of Blaise and Wood at his party Saturday night…it was Sunday's edition.

Draco sat down on one of the low, puffy chairs near the table and he glared at the Sunday tabloid…only to see that the Monday tabloid featured pictures of Blaise and Wood sitting outside his house in Scotland…that the Tuesday edition featured pictures of them walking peacefully in Scotland, and that this very morning's copy had pictures of them eating lunch together in London…and in a fairly close embrace towards the supposed end of the supposed date.

Why the fuck had Pansy just let her run off to London? Lord knows what kind of trouble she could get into there. Look what she was already doing.

Draco stormed back into the bedroom to give Pansy a piece of his mind, but she seemed to be packing.

"I can't take this anymore." Pansy said shrilly, and Draco noticed she was dressed. "I can't let you be so preoccupied with your thoughts of her and let her throw her life away for you when you're supposed to be getting married."

"Do you mean for me to dissolve my contract with the Zabinis?" Draco asked dimly. "I won't do that."

"What I mean is that your contract with _me_ is hereby dissolved. It is quite obvious that you're strangely enamored with her and if you won't allow her anyone but yourself, you are quite free to do with her what you please, because I will no longer stand in the way of this painful charade!" Pansy picked up some random perfume bottle and threw it at him.

Draco ducked, but the scent had been released into the air. He recognized it. It filled the room suddenly and his eyes narrowed. "Where did you get that?"

Draco looked at the table where she had picked it up from. Although the bottle no longer in tact, the gold and ebony stairs leading up to it were still recognizable.

"Blaise gave it to me before she left." Pansy whispered, kneeling down to pick up the pieces of black glass that had shattered on the floor. "Oh no…"

Pansy crawling around helplessly and wretchedly—Draco had never thought the picture quite below her. But for the sake of sentiment?

Suddenly, Draco realized the impact of her words. "You're leaving me?"

Pansy suddenly looked up from the mess she had made, eyes narrowed. "As long as evidence shows that you can't completely love me, Draco—I see no reason to get married."

As she swept her bags away, heading towards the exit, she turned back to him. "Here I was, thinking I was so lucky to not only have an incredible best friend of Blaise, but also thinking how extraordinary it was to actually be in love with the man I was going to marry."

* * *

Blaise could barely concentrate on the dinner before her.

It was Thursday. The sixth day she had spent more than six hours in Oliver's company. Her leg itched and she couldn't stand this lunch much longer.

"I think—" Blaise said in an unusually high pitch. "That I'll be going home for today."

The Puddlemere boys all exchanged grins. "Alright." Said Terrence, winking at Wood. "Well, boys, she's got the right idea. No practice today, so rest up."

"Huh?" Blaise asked rather dimly as she stood up in a flustered huff.

"Well, it's the night before the game. Tomorrow we'll be drilling like crazy, but the boys deserve one night off, wouldn't you think?" Terrence inquired with a twinkle in his eye, and Blaise suddenly didn't feel her plan was working out too well. She had planned to rush off, casually congratulate Oliver the following night after the game, and then see how much time she could stretch between them without seeming like she was avoiding him.

"Right."

"I'll take you home, Blaise." Oliver offered quietly, and Blaise's fears were suddenly quelled.

This affair wasn't getting ridiculously out of control…because if it were, the way the couple was looking at each other would make her bored, not uncomfortable.

"Right."

Break 

"How incredibly you this whole suite is." Oliver exhaled with relief as Blaise let him in.

"What did you expect?" Blaise asked on a whisper, closing the door behind her.

"I don't know…something more like your place at the Mansion." Oliver muttered, trying to keep his envy out of his voice.

"Nope." Blaise chirped, the sunshine of the afternoon dying to quench her thirst for light.

Oliver followed her a little bit, not finding it at all odd that her old-fashioned bed seemed to be in the center of the room. The thoughts of the bed, however, made him blush.

The room seemed a bit off for some reason, and there was something oddly uncomfortable about it. There was something lacking in the atmosphere, but Oliver didn't say anything.

Blaise tossed down a blue silk floor pillow near the side of her bed, and hopped up onto her bed eagerly, sitting Indian style. "Sit, Oliver."

"Yes, ma'am." Oliver sat rather awkwardly, his bum cushioned by the pillow and his legs sticking straight out. He was kind of discomfited until Blaise put her hands to work on his shoulders.

Oh, his bruised shoulders, how she always could make a symphony out of the noise they cried out. There was something within those magical palms that were laced with soothing and comfort that Oliver, without this private knowledge, otherwise never would have been able to associate with her. A serene smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and the same feeling pulled his eyelids down, his neck arching as he took in the relief of the pain. Oliver's thighs and arse also twitched, but he wouldn't very well admit that to her for fear her audacity would have her soothe them too, and then they'd be in a right mess. Oliver grinned at that thought. Oh, how she did make him cocky. Oliver needn't have asked about his arms, because somehow with the fondling of his shoulder bruises, her handiwork somehow spread down through them.

"Feel alright?" Blaise whispered in his ear. If he hadn't been up until that point, her whisper probably would have healed him. There was something distinctly sexual about it, and he wouldn't ignore it this time. At the same time, it dripped with concern—the combination was utterly delectable.

He moaned and nodded, and Blaise sat up erectly, something shooting through her with animal instinct. "Good then." She breathed, standing up and sauntering across the room.

A languid simper stretched across Blaise's face, and she closed the blue curtains of her bedroom. She turned to face him, primal nature fighting her cautionary tactics. "Does this remind you of anything?"

She shed the zip-up hoodie she had been wearing. "Sunlight…clean room…the two of us."

Oliver shuddered as Blaise sauntered in front of him, tank top and sweats, ponytail and plain. Her features softened as she looked up at him, drawing him in with her intake of breath, like he were her oxygen, as if he were her air. "What have I been _doing_?"

Before Oliver could cheekily suggest something extremely nonsexual, she pulled his head closer to hers by a handful of hair, and tight lips crashed together, and in no time, Blaise had pulled him onto the bed with such terrible force that it hurt him.

"Gods, I've missed you." Blaise admitted in a terribly low tone, stripping off her tank top. Oliver could only agree as she pulled off his jumper. "I can't tell you how much."

"Don't then." Oliver squeaked, tugging at his shirt. Christ, did he have to wear so many bloody layers in the winter?

He suddenly realized she hadn't put on a bra. The girl was going to give herself a cold. The idea made him smirk.

She looked up from where she had been frenziedly trying to undo his belt buckle. "What's so fucking funny?"

Oliver reached above him just slightly, his large hands equivalent and cupping her breasts. "Naughty girl's going to get herself sick soon."

A flash of hardness sped through Blaise's eyes and out of them almost as quickly as it had arrived, and she shuddered, shaking it off. "Probably."

She had never been one for word-battling, game-like sex. She imagined that if she ever had done anything with Draco (again, she shuddered), it would have been that way.

Oliver studied her, where her fingers had stopped their busywork, and her face looked rather blank. Removing his hands from her breasts, they worked behind her and down towards the small of her back, and he pushed her towards him for an open-mouthed kiss.

Blaise shut her eyes forcefully; kissing him with such fervor he was afraid she would bruise herself. It wasn't until the tears began falling that he figured out why she was so desperate to get that little tongue of hers in his mouth.

"Blaise—are you alright?" Oliver sat up, and their skulls smashed together. By now, Blaise was completely holding back her tears now, and it was searing her throat. She was straddling his lap and her arms were wrapped around his neck and never before had he seen her so delicate. Even after their first and only time together, she had seemed so blissfully happy that she radiated confidently. But now— "I see you don't really want to do this."

He hadn't meant for his voice to sound as hard as it did. "No, I really do, it's just…"

The thing that had been wrong in the air suddenly reeked even more, and this time, Oliver could tell they both could smell it. She tried looking him in the eye happily, and her tears pulled her eyelids down and Oliver saw it there in those bright blue orbs, the bright blue that was streaked across this room—

His possession of her. No, not Oliver's…Draco Malfoy's.

Oliver wanted to throw her off his lap. Her touch was scorching him; tearing at his heart and making his head throb with pain. After all this time, even regarding the two years they had barely spoken to one another—this week had led him to believe that she could still be his.

She was such a fucking tease.

Oliver tried to be reasonable. It was quite probably that while she had grown up quite a bit, she was still under Malfoy's lock and key until that contract was up—or until he let go of her so harshly she couldn't help but face reality.

And unfortunately, that appeared, regardless, to be at least two years off in the distance. "Right then. Um…" Oliver reached for his shirt, and Blaise tentatively climbed off of his lap, standing there and still choking back sobs, but even she knew, as Oliver did, that anything Oliver did to comfort her would hurt them both. "I'll be seeing you."

He pulled on his shirt rather forcefully, grabbing at his jumper blindly.

"Right." Blaise whispered, finally letting her tears openly fall as he left the room, door open. She'd brushed them back in his presence somehow, without fingers, without a wand. She took the walk up to her window and pulled the thin curtains closed, and pulling the silk after them. She stood with much strength, although her head hung low and her back arched a little, and was determined not to continue crying. How could she continue to do this to herself? Blaise bit her lip back until it began to bleed, and she spat it out on the curtain.

The curtain was a vivid green.

* * *

Draco Malfoy stormed through his front door, and collided with Oliver Wood, who didn't look too pleased. Both men nodded at each other, gave each other a cold stare, and went their separate ways.

He marched through to Blaise's door and found her with her back to it, naked from the waist up.

"I won't have you seeing him anymore." Draco said flatly.

Blaise's head nodded.

"And there will be no more of this sobbing about, dragging yourself over to bleeding Scotland to cheer yourself up. My engagement is broken and as such are your reasons for being here."

Blaise nodded again.

"Right then." Draco said in a quieter voice. The words seemed to spark something in Blaise's memory that made her shoulders shake. He didn't continue. He didn't feel he needed to—in fact, for the first time, Draco felt tact—and if he continued right now, he knew he would break her beyond repair.

He turned and closed her door after him, and was surprised to see Oliver Wood standing there, looking pensive and a bit angry all at the same time.

"Well," Draco sneered, "Go on!"

Oliver Wood glared into Blaise's door and then, turning on his heel, stormed out, Draco following him.

* * *

Blaise suddenly remembered that very late in her seventh year when some guy her roommate Millicent had fallen madly in love with, a townie Half-blood that worked in the bar, had taken Millicent's virginity and then sent back all of her owl-posts. The girls crowded around Millicent, all having been rejected by at least one person in their lives, and Blaise remembered being so wrapped in envy of Pansy Parkinson, and bitterness equally directed towards her, at the time blaming Pansy for putting Blaise through all the situations similar to Millicent's that she hadn't really been paying attention until Pansy had said, (Blaise remembered thinking that this was stereotypically slutty, even for Pansy), "It's only sex, Millie."

And at that moment, Blaise saw the supple, unblemished cheeks of Millicent's face, her strong shoulders, and her soft hair. Millicent had stopped sobbing long enough to look up at Pansy and the other girls, her handkerchief nearly soaked with tears and their uglier brother from the nasal region, and in a choked whisper, had said, "It's never only sex. No matter who you are or how many times you've ever had it, it's _never_ only sex."

It never struck Blaise until suddenly right then that the beauty she had seen in Millicent that day was a basic human backbone—courage, values, and romantic whims—all shining through the ugliest Slytherin girl in that year. The thought only made her more upset and Blaise twisted, stretching and rolling like a cat during a pleasant nap, and she withdrew into a little ball in her own sheets, the scent so detached from her. She realized why the sense had seemed off—it smelled of Draco every centimeter of the apartment. The sheets were silky and reeked strongly of prejudice and pain, and Blaise knew she had no escape for the moment. So silently, she began to cry.

To be continued…


	4. Glycerin

Disclaimer: Neither own Glycerin (Bush) nor Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling, Twentieth Century Fox, Time Warner, and respective publishing companies). However, my intricate little ditty does belong to me. A/N: This was a tough chapter to write…because it's transitional, and transitions SUCK (having been through a few myself…). They hurt, as should the writing.

> > _  
if I treated you bad _
>> 
>> _You bruise my face _
>> 
>> _Couldn't love you more _
>> 
>> _You got a beautiful taste _
>> 
>> _Don't let the days go by _
>> 
>> _Could have been easier on you _
>> 
>> _I couldn't change though I wanted to _
>> 
>> _Could have been easier by three _
>> 
>> _Our old friend fear and you and me _
>> 
>> _Glycerin _
>> 
>> _Don't let the days go by _
>> 
>> _Glycerin_

* * *

_In Realization_

**_Four_**

"Have you nothing better to do than mope around my office?" Draco said a moment after taking in Blaise's melancholy position on the couch, the same position he had left her in when he'd left for lunch. This was the third time this week.

Blaise turned her gaze from the window, beginning on a breathy inhale, "Perhaps," she seemed to stop herself, knowing better of it.

"No, go on and say it. Don't censor yourself on my account." Draco ordered cordially, pulling on the robe he'd taken off and straightening his tie. He went over to his desk and leaned back in the large leather chair, propping his feet up.

"Your account?" Blaise snorted, the air exhaling onto the window, its thin layer of dust torn by Blaise's nose and forehead.

Draco gingerly picked up a copy of the Daily Prophet.

"She hasn't announced the break-up yet." Blaise told him upon hearing the familiar rustle.

"There's nothing to announce." Draco retorted plainly. "I was actually going to read about the Puddlemere game last Friday. I noticed you did not go."

"You didn't let me." Blaise muttered, wishing to smack the smugness out of his voice.

"Up and coming Keeper Oliver Wood, popular with the ladies and rare to the social scene, played one of his best games of Quidditch since the last time he was seen in heiress Blaise Zabini's company, but in an altogether different style. His defense style has gotten quite violent, and Wood didn't let a single Quaffle in, helping the offense focus entirely on setting a score impossible to beat, even with the capture of the Golden Snitch." Draco clicked his tongue, hitting the hard palette of his mouth. "That Wood…such a boy when it comes to dealing with you."

_Playing house…_ The words swirled around in her head more often than not. She flipped from lying on her stomach, absentmindedly wiping the dust off of her forehead and tip of her nose.

"Any messages?"

"She hasn't owled." Blaise answered. "As far as we know she's disappeared."

"I wasn't asking, but thank you." Draco retorted shortly.

"Azkaban. That has to be the better alternative." Blaise chirped, sitting up and getting ready to leave.

"I'm sure you think you're very funny. They like comediennes in hell, so I'm told." Draco pushed down the top of the newspaper's pages with his index fingers to watch her.

"Men like you," Blaise began, leaning on the doorway with blank eyes, "Should not believe in hell."

"Where are you going?" Draco demanded hotly, awkwardly standing up.

"Anywhere." Blaise snapped, brushing back the long, tapered layer of hair that had come undone in her moping.

"I don't know why you're acting so miserable!" Draco's voice chased after her. "You'll be queen of the Malfoy Mansion again."

Now he physically decided to follow her, hearing her snort, "I'll be bloody Cleopatra."

"Pardon?" Draco asked, his nose wrinkling in confusion.

"Fancy yourself a pharaoh much, Malfoy?" Blaise answered in place of an explanation.

Draco snatched her by the wrist, and his long, oval fingernails dug into the skin there.

"Not interrupting anything, am I?" The widowed Mrs. Bellatrix Lestrange, standing in all her self-imposed glory, smirked across the dimly lit hallway at them, an aura of light illuminating her as she walked. She inspected Blaise carefully, silently instructing her with a long, elegant finger to turn just so. Blaise tried to follow her instructions carefully, as for some strange reason, the vengeful Bellatrix enjoyed Blaise's company. Bellatrix frowned in Draco's direction. "I see you haven't popped any Black into this one yet. It's a shame…your fiancée certainly won't be able to strongly carry on the legacy of my fathers—at least not without contaminating it."

Blaise flushed. She took in Bellatrix as she always did, feeling quite surreal. The long, tight elegant black robes billowed from the elbows and knees, and a golden locket around her neck seemed to glitter with malice rather than antiquity. Similarly, a large golden ring with the Black family crest was only one of many on Bellatrix's fingers, and the luxury, history and hatred that perfumed the air were released with a wave of Bellatrix's hand, among many other opulent scents. Bellatrix wore a new one nearly every single day, as to not be recognized. A magnificent necklace of twelve opals circled Bellatrix's neck, and Blaise recognized all of these from photographs of the Blacks in their glorious years or from the shop window of Borgin and Burke's.

"So, to answer my own question…I'm _not_ interrupting anything. Anything at all." Bellatrix grinned and Draco scowled at his aunt.

"What are you doing here, Bella?"

Bellatrix grinned, flicking her wrist and a gleaming contract unrolled itself from within her palm. "I have come to handle the great duty of the fate of one of our daughters."

Bellatrix moved her palm so it faced upwards and the contract rolled itself back up and disappeared back into it. Her index finger beckoned Blaise closer and Blaise felt a heavy hand push her intimately by the small of her back into Bellatrix's aura.

"You don't do this sort of petty work, Bella." Draco growled and with her free hand, she violently thrust out her palm and although she didn't touch him, Draco was pushed up against a wall.

"Let's to your office, Draco. I'm sure we will have a great deal of fun."

* * *

Within Draco's office, with Bellatrix sitting at the head of his desk, Draco and Blaise squirmed in their opposite wing chairs like children.

Bellatrix reviewed over the priors from the charm school Blaise had attended for six weeks after Hogwarts. "I did hope you'd follow in my footsteps, Blaise, you had such the potential for it at the end of your sixth year, but Draco failed to do his duty and he was punished for it…your aunt Berenice, now she was a good Egyptian pureblood witch, she followed her duty. They still talk about her in Cairo."

Draco sat up. "Now, Aunt, I can't allow you to go on any longer—"

"Shut UP, Draco." Bellatrix commanded, annoyed. "Now, I fetched this contract off of your desk and you seem to have _not_ signed it as of yet—"

"Contract?" Blaise asked curiously, leaning forward from her seat. "I thought my contract with the Malfoys was kept in the Gringotts safe."

Bellatrix's eyes lit up. There was nothing more she loved (besides sadism) than drama. In those aspects, she was still quite the teenager. Call it her youth potion, pardoning the pun, of course. "Oh, my dear Blaise…we've so much to talk about…upon finishing school your caretaker was supposed to sign a contract with them and they were to arrange several matches for us to survey for your husband…for a slight fee of course…and you _wonder_, my dear nephew, why I have to do the dirty work? And here I was thinking there were no suitable matches in the whole of England and we'd have to enlist some Frenchmen into this mess! We needed to bring some color into the family!"

"Which one?" Blaise drawled under her breath, knowing there were probably six degrees of separation between herself and Bellatrix in the family tree.

"Well, naturally, he's going to have to be a Death Eater or the son of one, because I can see her loyalty will be pledged to his side as we seem to _also_ have failed to drill the proper argument into her—oh, Draco," His name escaped her lips almost orgasmic ally as a pleasured smirk stretched across Bellatrix's face and her lids closed euphorically. "The Dark Lord is not pleased with this…he's not pleased with this at all!" Something seemed to be convulsing through Bellatrix's spine. "He doesn't like greedy boys, does he, Rodolphus? Does he, Lucius?" Her eyes snapped open and something swirled in their orbs so gleefully Blaise was scared. "Oh, those two met their end when they decided to fuck with me…"

Blaise stood up, something boiling hotly within her veins. "Was Draco supposed to approve of this match my teachers made, because even if he had signed the contract, he wouldn't, no matter if the match were the Dark Lord himself!" Blaise tossed over the wing chair and Draco scrambled out of his to escape its path. "Draco treats me like his property, even though he _had_ a fiancée! I refuse to be his mistress as the cunt can't even kiss me!"

Bellatrix's eyes shined with morbid approval. "Oh, how you'd make a lovely match for Flint—he's so much more cunning when he has a challenge at home, do you catch my drift?"

"Marcus?" Draco squeaked from behind his wing chair, where he had flown to for refuge.

"I've gone through Flint." Blaise said flatly. "Besides, he's one of Draco's cronies."

Bellatrix walked around the table with long, languid movements of the entire of her legs, the heel and sole hitting the floor in a smooth rhythm. "Oh, if the Dark Lord weren't so angered in the caging of you as it were, how I'd love to play with you, pet…you're so headstrong…it's beautiful."

Bellatrix pulled Blaise into her embrace, whispering in her ear, "Trust me, Marcus is quite a match for you now, darling…the Dark Lord will bring out the spine in a man, either that or prove he's never had one…oh pet, Draco will have no cronies by the time I'm done with him…your qualifications are excellent."

And after that, it was strictly business. With the snap of her fingers, everything was back in order. She read aloud from the profile that Blaise's teachers had composed for her.

* * *

> > _Made from a stardust that can be of lethal injection into desperate debutantes' veins, Blaise possesses a certain charm and knack for detail that would make her a strict, hands-on mother and no corner would be unturned in her household cleaning. Many believe that it is Blaise's wit, beauty and other developed skills that brings her to the tables of the wealthy, to the arms of the handsome, and into the rooms of the powerful, but no, it is Blaise's lingering loyalty that someday to one man will be pledged and her coolness of personality, and the real smile hidden behind the expensive enamel of porcelain teeth that captures hearts. Blaise is sophisticatedly sexual, and will attract too many offers not legitimate enough for the standard we have set for our graduates, and possesses too much nuance and panache to marry some poor man on some whim. Blaise would do best in a household of several children, animals and human servants who lived in a house on a manor, and preferably with a man who made his money rather than inherited it, as she has a stronger respect for a man who has worked hard. Due to her delicate association with her sexuality, perhaps, for the beginning of their marriage, should there be a long engagement and solid foundation, his career would involve traveling and/or strange hours to stimulate her in her youth until she is mature enough to always be a willing master suite partner. It is also recommended that Blaise be allowed to keep house in London, and perhaps a business to suit her greatest labors, with an allowance for both._

* * *

"You've no animals, Draco, and nor do I expect multiple children from you, and your job is as boring is as boring does. You neither allow her a regular allowance nor a house or business, and you seem to have monopolized quite enough of her time, so your hope of possessing Blaise as some silly sort of pawn is just that—a silly, schoolboy's fantasy. Do grow up, and until then, I'll see to it that this house is put back into its order, and we shall see about Miss Zabini…" Another thrill got sent up Bellatrix's spine, oddly from the glowing mark on her wrist, "Later." She released breathily. "Play nice, children."

* * *

"You are exactly the only Gryffindor who Draco will allow me to see on most days." Blaise whispered upon whipping off her sunglasses as she sat in the dark, private booth of an upscale café in a hidden corner of Diagon Alley. She stared across the booth at Ginny Weasley, who didn't smile.

"I'm afraid my personal relationship with Oliver will not throw off my professionalism right now, Miss Zabini." Ginny said as she got out her Verbatim Quill and a piece of parchment.

"Oliver has nothing to do with this." Blaise said hollowly. "I'm afraid that there would be no point."

"I'm sorry." Ginny muttered, not bearing to see the apathy in Blaise's features.

"As am I." Her voice echoed within itself, deeper, throatier, more pained. "I have been called into this world to undo that by which I was made, and I apologize if what I know is not enough."

"Alright. Miss Zabini, can you testify as to your position amongst the Death Eaters?" Ginny's voice was slow and deliberate, and finally, the quill inched across the page.

Blaise looked both ways and Ginny's hand over her shaking one set on the table comforted her. "We are well protected." Ginny mouthed, and Blaise inhaled sharply.

"My father, Alessandro Zabini, was a Death Eater, and owed the Malfoy family a wizard's debt when Lucius Malfoy rescued him from a raid of a Death Eaters' meeting near Hogsmeade. As some sort of training, Lucius had a contract drawn that made the head of the Malfoy household in charge of my trust, and thus, my care, upon my graduation from Hogwarts if and when my parents should fail to be able to do so. They were mysteriously murdered only months after this contract was drawn, late in my fifth year. Now, currently, I am the ward of Draco Malfoy." Blaise's voice broke suddenly. "He's only five months my senior."

Something stirred within the young Auror trainee's heart and they softly continued the interview.

"Is there any intent for your role amongst the Death Eaters to be promoted or demoted, to the best of your knowledge?"

"Yes."

Ginny wordlessly handed Blaise a flask of Veritaserum and she downed it quite rapidly, wiping her mouth almost primally. "Again." Ginny requested softly, and they began again.

* * *

Several days had gone by and Blaise was jumpy. Draco had neither returned home and nor was she quite dead yet, so chances were he was still with the Dark Lord, and none had suspected about her interview with Ginny.

The traditions of the pureblooded elitists, as it were, would seem to be the demise of them, according to the plans. When Pansy Parkinson again appeared on the arm of a fatigued Draco tomorrow night, she would subdue the rumors and prove Draco's statements of her private vacation true, whilst Blaise would find herself sacrificed to the pureblooded dogs—their bachelors, divorcees and widowers, all by invite of the also blossoming Mrs. Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord's right hand woman. After confirming their presence at the upcoming wedding on Saturday, Blaise would fly solo to the event, which was to be followed by a traditional, private Death Eater ceremony that Blaise would "accidentally" lead the Aurors to.

"Blaisie?" Her spine froze when she heard that name…coming from a strange voice. "Blaisie…I know you're here…Bellatrix said you're here…"

The cliché was slithering, tres serpentine…Draco seemed to be quite the fan of clichés, and in a second, Blaise could feel him try to wrap himself too tightly around her body. She whipped around and caught him entirely off-guard.

His weakened body hit the floor of her bedroom with a thud, and he gripped the hemline of her dress for leverage, only taking the beads down with him.

"Crikey, woman, can't a man surprise a woman without getting bloody expensive beads down his throat?" Draco tried to scramble onto his feet, and Blaise pitied him in his inability to do so. "I suppose you're very satisfied that my bullying has finally been punished."

Blaise nodded reluctantly, keeping leverage by not allowing him to close the distance between them.

"Scared, Blaise?" Draco asked almost innocently, as if she had no reason to be. Granted, his physical prowess wasn't quite up to par, but it never had been.

"No…" Blaise half-lied, turning away from him. "I'm fine. I'm fine." Her voice rose ever so slightly, only Oliver would have been able to detect it. "I've tried on my gown for this silly little thing…"

"Right." Draco whispered, his eyes glazing over as Bellatrix's voice taunted him in his head. "'The celebutante who looks more like a rock star than a lady who lunches, ambiguously virginal and mischievously innocent intrigue, seems to be moving on from wealthy school prefects and Quidditch stars and is putting an effort into settling down this Friday night…'"

The lilt of Draco's whisper was lazy and lingering, withdrawing like a heavy perfume in summer. The heaviness of the dust in the air was becoming increasingly more suffocating and Blaise coughed up a little. Inhaling deeply with a struggle, she tried to hold her breath but failed.

"Ambiguously virginal…" Blaise repeated slowly. Her eyelids suddenly felt heavy and Draco smirked.

"As if the Dark Lord would waste any effort on the practices of the pure since our ancestors' humble beginnings…" He muttered, as Blaise began to look a little faint.

"What?" Blaise muttered, and Draco pounced on her, scooping her up into his arms.

"The Dark Lord has better things to do than pay attention to a silly…little…girl…" Draco's lips turned up, but he wasn't smiling. He rarely smiled; she should have remembered that. "Tell me about your gown, Blaise…you girls just love talking about your gowns."

Blaise tried shoving against his embrace, but struggled to. "It's black."

"Oh, Blaise…" Draco teased with amusement, thrusting her upwards so that she practically sat up in his arms, her posture erect and rigid. "You can tell me more than that, can't you?"

"Fruit." Blaise croaked out through gritted teeth.

"Describe it, Blaisie." Blaise couldn't keep her eyes open any more but somehow, her sense of feeling was heightened and it was as if her body were interpreting the air in the corridors of the Malfoy Mansion.

He was taking her towards the master suite.

"Tight…deep plunging v-neck…sweeping mermaid skirt…train beginning at the waist…it's black lace…your favorite, git." Her eyes shut now; Draco didn't notice the thin, zebra-striped glazing on Blaise's cheeks. "Black orchids knitted into lace…"

"We've been dropping the beads of your dress, Blaise." Draco reprimanded, and she could nearly hear the simper left over in his tone. "Pansy will kill you."

The thin lines of salty glaze on Blaise's cheeks began getting thicker and bleeding into one another. The suffocating of the dust heavy air blended into the fluid of misery in Blaise's throat, and Blaise was gasping for air.

"Pansy." She managed, her hands wildly and weakly dancing in front of her. She could see them, luminously, trying to float in front of her closed eyelids, making their way to Draco's robes and trying to push.

"A tiny, insignificant detail." His voice was hissing gently, like the buzz after too much Firewhiskey, incessant and growing louder, despite its reality of softness. She was feeling hung over as the heavy double doors to Draco's suite opened with a gloomy finality, and he looked down on her. His face, as if reversed by some sort of light, glowing in the darkness, commanded her eyes to finally open.

They were flooding.

Reality struck Draco all too harshly and he nearly dropped her, drugged, right there on the floor, no matter how lushly carpeted the floors may have been. Draco set her down on the bed and rang for a collection of house elves.

"I'm off to fetch my fiancée, Blaisie." His voice rang with the tinkling of wedding bells, bitter and echoing and all at once, naïvely hopeful.

Her eyes barely being able to stay open, they shut again, hazy behind salty pools, the taste of the Mansion sitting in her mouth beneath her tongue, directly flowing into her bloodstream and poisoning it.

To be continued…


	5. We're Both So Sorry

Disclaimer/A/N: Oh, wow, was the song for this chapter really hard to choose, especially because the outline I'd made for this strayed sooooo off-course during the last chapter. Of course, most of the rules generally apply; things belong to J.K., blah, blah, blah. I doubt she would use the word fuck as many times as I do, nor do I think she'd care to go into this much depth for a character who has thus far appeared once in her series, and barely. I've seriously cut down the chunks of the lyrics I've used, as to not scare people away when they have to go through them to get to the fic…songfics _are_ scary most of the time. But shout-out to Skyway (she's got this interesting G/D and some Bella fics I've used as inspiration for my Bella)…she turned me back onto my obscure music. The following is Mirah's _We're Both So Sorry_.

_How can I ever apologize? I meant you no such harm  
I never knew I could possess that fatal kind of charm  
I just wanted to be good to you but I found I was disarmed  
By a lifetime of disillusionment and the distraction of the stars  
I abdicated now I'm just a prince without a land  
My subjects all adore me but for this I have been banned  
Now could I trade my guilt for a good flogging by your hand?  
And hey I'm sorry 'bout so much baby but I know you'll understand  
I'm sorry 'bout so much baby but I know you'll understand_

* * *

_Overcompensating _

**_Five _**

"I intend to ravish you the second the ink is dry." Marcus's voice was dry and hot upon her ears, and arms crossed under her bust, she turned to him blankly.

"Oh?" Blaise asked simply, shrugging. "I suppose then, that all of this is merely for show?"

With a dismissive wave of her hand, she gestured towards the grandiose gathering straight out of some sort of royal fantasy that sprawled out before them in the Malfoy manor, a far cry from the Wiltshire mansion equivalent amongst the Muggles, where the steps to the ballroom were open and long. They were lost, somewhere, none too far from a port, and that was frankly all Blaise knew. She knew that should she try to run across the dark grounds into the endless blue horizon, she'd end up toppling down a hell and onto a none too pleasant beach, with ominous rocky cliffs in the distance.

It was quite the fantasy home, she'd heard.

"Red currant rum, disguised as only the finest wine." Marcus answered silkily, whisking a champagne flute into her clutches, sweeping back her long hair and kissing the dip in her shoulder delicately. "I've heard you've been quite the bitch lately."

"And that turns you on?" Blaise replied levelly, tossing the red currant rum over her shoulder and splashing Marcus. He tried not to scowl, drawing his wand and cleaning up the mess. "I've grown up from red currant rum, Marcus."

"So I've heard." Bellatrix was wrong; Marcus hadn't grown up. He was still going for the pleasure of the chase and since Blaise seemed like new again, he was enjoying it. And if only she were in the mood to fight with him, she'd seal the deal. Unfortunately for Bellatrix and Marcus, Blaise was so tired of all of this elitist bullshit that she wasn't quite in the mood to fight. "Apparently, you and I make quite good bedfellows."

"Really?" Blaise's tone edged on bored, and she was sounding a bit like a Malfoy hybrid. She frowned at the thought.

"Are you kidding me? Blaise, you were born a sexual being. Those train station days were nothing compared to your vengeful phase and now…you're a sophisticate." Funny how these were the words were Marcus's lyrics to the songs of his praises, and funny how Blaise didn't quite care for the genre.

She tuned him out, no pun intended. Really, no intentions at all.

"Don't you have a wife?" Blaise suddenly demanded, finally handing him the champagne flute and gathering her skirts to make her entrance into the party supposedly held in her honor but none really anticipated her arrival—none that she'd want to be anticipating it, anyhow. Press agents and Draco. How thrilling.

"Divorced." Marcus was too eager—what had he been told, she wondered?

"Well, I knew you considered me a trophy, Marcus, but I'm afraid I'm no trophy wife. I'm rather shit with children, especially ones I don't feel drawn to. And I'm afraid the children of Mrs. Millicent Flint don't entirely appeal to me." Blaise absentmindedly posed for a picture for some random gossip magazine and marched up towards the platform where Bellatrix sat idly, on one of the four thrones up there. Blaise rolled her eyes at the borderline personality disorder pertaining to the delusions of grandeur of it all.

"Unhappy, precious?" Bellatrix cooed, but Blaise could tell that she too was bored. Bella always filed her nails at these events, as if rounding them out perfectly could replace her beloved kill.

"I think that answer is best kept to myself." Blaise snapped, sitting down in one of the thrones idly and slouching. "I've shot down Marcus Flint." She said flatly. "Sorry."

"No worries, precious, I'm sure someone else will step up." Bellatrix answered absently, looking at her nails. "Oh, I wish I were torturing someone. This is dreadfully boring."

Blaise silently agreed. There was nothing she'd rather be doing than apologizing to Oliver right now, and unfortunately, that didn't seem like an option.

"What about Miles Bletchey?" Bella suggested idly. Blaise was quiet. Bella scowled. "Oh, come on, throw me a bone here. I'm bored to tears and I could use some intelligent conversation, even if the subject's rather petty."

"He's sleeping with my sister." Blaise said flatly, and the way she said it wasn't as to squash the suggestion, but to state fact.

"So?"

"He's divorced."

"Again…"

"Baggage. Not my style, thanks." Bellatrix shrugged.

"Don't blame you, honey." Bellatrix created a shade over her impenetrable stare, and squinted in the direction of an unrobed young man who was moving with ease through the crowds. "Who is that?"

Blaise shrugged. The adopted daughter of a German millionaire and the half-blood daughter of a famous Muggle writer and his American model wife ran to catch up with the tan brunette, and suddenly, Blaise recognized the three of them—and the fourth, another girl, one of the eight pureblooded American Barton children. They'd all attended the World Cup so long ago; Blaise had probably partied with them. The writer's daughter had a brother on the losing team, ironically another Oliver.

"And who are his friends?" Bellatrix demanded, rising slowly. "I recognize the boy and I recognize one of the girls—"

"Half-bloods." Daphne Greengrass spat. Bellatrix nearly jumped, not expecting Blaise's contemporary to sneak up on them. "Socialites, both of them."

Bellatrix tensed. "How did they—who—what half-blood in their right mind would want to crash a—"

"I hear he brought them with him to look more desirable." Daphne snipped. It was obviously working on Daphne.

"Who is he?" Bellatrix asked again and Daphne's posture stiffened.

"Royal Tiberius. Known by RC in the business world." Daphne answered robotically, and Bellatrix smiled.

"Oh, Blaise, the Tiberius family is one of only eight pureblooded clans in the States."

Daphne got defensive nearly immediately. "He's not just that! He's a racer for the East Coast Eagles broom racing team, and he's an investor in the Sweetwater All-Stars."

"Puddlemere won against them in the Cup a few years ago." Blaise explained to Bellatrix, who was looking dangerously bored.

"And he's the youngest investor and primary stockholder of the Firebolt Company and the only American on the board!" Daphne exclaimed excitedly. Blaise turned her eyes to the dapper American scion, as he led a conversation, seemingly about Quidditch.

"Huh." Bellatrix appeared to still be unimpressed, but Blaise knew better. They studied the boy's face. He appeared to be about 23, and was well groomed but nonetheless, seemed every bit the rugged man's man he was described as.

"He's in Europe looking for a wife." A Spanish drawl purred and Blaise, Bellatrix and Daphne turned to see the two scions to the Torres fortunes, Selma Guerin-Donavon and her cousin, Margarita Li. Selma had been raised in America and was now the wife of the owner of a wizarding accounting firm, Brit Tate Donavon, but Margarita had gone to Hogwarts for a short time. It was Margarita who continued. "Wealthiest, youngest, most charismatic, but still lacking in pedigree."

"He is America's most eligible bachelor." Selma added with a simper. "He is heavily involved in the development department at Firebolt, and even tested the prototypes while he was still in school."

Blaise rolled her eyes. The last thing she needed was another Quidditch boy.

Bellatrix smiled. Obviously, this young man was interested in Blaise or he wouldn't be at the Manor. Bellatrix turned to share her smirk with Blaise, and then scowled. "I've lost her again. MORGANA!"

* * *

"See anybody you like?" Draco's voice taunted, and Blaise spun, sneering. Unfortunately, Draco had back up. "Like a kid in a broom shop, she is."

His companion didn't look quite liked he believed Draco. "Really?"

His accent was American. Ah, this was the man everyone had been talking about. Sufficiently awkward enough.

Obviously, Draco thought so as well, as he smugly clapped his hands together. "Well, then, I'll leave you kids to it."

The two shared an awkward laugh. "Royal C. Tiberius." The young brunette man introduced himself with raised, groomed eyebrows. Blaise studied his tan nose. It was long, but button-shaped. His skin was even and his eyes twinkled blue. His eyelashes were brown and they curled, and Blaise had to shake herself awake.

"Blaise Zabini." She put forth her hand and something about him made her smile. Their hands touched briefly and dropped.

"What's so funny?" Royal—his name was funny, but she wasn't going to say that.

"I think we've met before, actually." Blaise said before she could stop herself; it was the first excuse she could think up. "I mean…at the World Cup…maybe 2 years ago?"

"Really?" Royal set down his glass and rose his chin a little in interest. "I hardly remember anything of that Cup. My team lost to Puddlemere so I partied the misery away."

He smiled fondly on the memories and for a second there, Blaise shared that smile. Ah, those innocent days.

"My ex…" She began tentatively. "Was their Keeper."

She instantly regretted bringing him up.

"Ah, then a Quidditch fan or a Quidditch groupie?" His question made Blaise laugh and she was a little more at ease.

"Fan, I'm afraid." Blaise exaggerated a sigh and, upon Royal's confused look, continued. "Had I been a groupie, you see, I would've been the type to try to marry him solely for the Quidditch glory…before he tired of my ignorance of the game, I mean."

Royal nodded and let out a half-hearted laugh. She knew she shouldn't have brought up Oliver.

"Wood is intense." Blaise resisted raising her eyebrows in agreement. "In a good way, I mean." Blaise nodded. "How long did the two of you date?"

Blaise hesitated and winced. "Maybe a year…nearly a year, anyway." She brushed it off uncomfortably with a wave of her hand. "So do you live permanently in the States?"

"Well, currently I am the head of Firebolt's American Distribution Department, but I'm over here for development so often I might as well be a Londoner." He smiled as if to encourage a laugh and Blaise laughed faintly. "The family; however, lives in New York City."

"What part?" Blaise's mother, an Egyptian-French pureblooded witch, had grown up in New York City, and they'd been together with her sister several times, mostly to shop.

"I live in this lovely house on Archer Ave?" Royal offered. "Do you know New York well?"

Blaise shook her head. "There are houses in New York?" She asked, her tone edging on bored. "I thought there were only penthouses and lofts and hotel suites."

"My parents and sisters live in penthouses and hotels but I like houses." Royal explained, and both of their sets of eyes began to wander.

Blaise nodded, wishing for a cigarette. "Where did you go to school?"

"The Magnus MacDonald Magnet. It specialized in the physical elements of magic: how it worked, what it was and why it worked." Royal began to drum his hands against his thigh.

Blaise nodded. She wished she hadn't brought up Oliver, because before then, Royal had been interesting.

"Um, excuse me, I need a cigarette." She spat suddenly, turning to go.

"Do I distress you that much?" Draco would have grinned cheekily but when Blaise turned to reply, Royal looked sincerely concerned.

"Oh, no, I'm just shit at this sort of thing." Blaise confessed, twisting a ring on her right hand. "I'm…I'm sorry but I'm not really interested."

This thought seemed to genuinely baffle Royal. But Blaise didn't wait for the awkwardness to continue. She made fists into her skirt and maneuvered her way expertly through the crowd, heading for her guest room on the Manor, with Royal hot on her heels.

* * *

"I swear, I have less than ten questions to ask you." Royal's shoes increased tempo to keep up with her, which would have been more difficult if the Manor didn't confuse her so.

"Less than ten?" Blaise laughed, rolling her eyes. "Ambitious."

Royal stopped and soon thereafter, so did Blaise. She turned and squinted at him, her arms crossed over her chest. What was his game? Now he was interested in…sparking her interest?

He seemed complimented when she'd called him ambitious, but his facial features did not twist into a self-satisfied expression. Rather, they softened. "Money doesn't impress you."

Blaise noticed his tone was more narrative than interrogative.

"No," She began, but he interrupted.

"Would it matter if you were poor?" Blaise's eyebrows rose. He was direct, but his question made sense. She could be one of those girls who was only unimpressed by money because she had it.

"Would I even be eligible if I were poor?…No, don't answer that. I know the answer." Blaise sighed and chuckled. "No, it would not matter to me then, either." Blaise inhaled sharply. "However, whatever the monetary matter may be, my guardians prioritize wealth." Blaise paused, uncrossing her arms.

"And looks, do they matter?" Royal's tone was breathy, and he took a step forward tentatively, as thought to respect her space.

"I want beautiful children." Blaise answered diplomatically, but flatly. Royal began to smile, and although she detected that he acknowledged their children would be beautiful, there was not a new swagger in his movement.

"Are you social?" Blaise began to smile too. His hair, she noticed, was soft, and his questions, she could tell, were scripted.

"I know what is required of me," Blaise began, grinning. "And then I have my indulgences." Like lunches with ex-boyfriends. Blaise's brain moved to have that statement stricken from the record.

The word "indulgences" made Royal's smile expand. He had very white, very straight and very evenly-shaped teeth. "And I know the answer to this one, but do you like Quidditch? My mother told me to ask these questions, and she knew how important Quidditch was to me."

Blaise laughed, and she nodded.

"Well, goodnight then." Royal turned to go and Blaise's face fell and she felt herself jolt forward, eyes wide like an abandoned boarhound. As though he could hear it, Royal instantly turned round again, took a few long strides to her, raised her palm to his lips and winked.

"No worries, principessa. I'll be back." And with that, Blaise's brief moments with the elusive American millionaire Royal C. Tiberius were over.


End file.
